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Back from Lowlands

Gigs

I'm too drunk to give a detailed review of Lowlands, but here are the highlights:

Best: the Enter Shikari mosh pit and Battles. And my tent being dry, big and easy to handle. Worst: some standup comedy late at Sat night, Kaiser Chiefs. Disappointing: Eagles of Death Metal, spending over 400 euro on beer and food. Very worst: it's over! Very best: more llow in 52 weeks! ;)

Unrelated note: great girls at Lowlands, but I can't help myself and miss Laura very much. Damn you, special one! <3

Enter Shikari tonight

Gigs

Going to the pub last night (and Sunday, and Saturday, and Friday) might not have been such a brilliant idea because I'm rather knackered and Enter Shikari is playing at Waterfront tonight so I won't have a chance to get much sleep.

Sucks to be me! ;)

GIAN 2007 London Day 3

Gigs

The day started same old, same old: queued, got drunk, met up with Laura, Tash and Andy. Fortunately a few more good, fun bands played today, really enjoyed the soothing beats of Hellogoodbye and MxPx again (especially 500 Miles which brought a flashback of Storm), while you can never go wrong with Jimmy Eat World either.

Definitely a rough day as well, left the pit with plenty of bruises and headaches (nothing serious) while I had to miss most of AFI's show because some concussed person ended up in my arms. Oh well, I see too many gigs to care about missing a show or two when there are far more important things to attend to. What I do care about is being so stupid to forget to bring Laws' present so I'll have to give it to her next time.

Sadly all good things come to an end, as did Give It A Name again.

(Post-dated entry, written later than it appears to avoid an endless row of pictures inside the journal.)

GIAN 2007 London Day 2

Gigs

Woke up early again, despite a long fun day before. Jamie urged me to get to Earl's Court quick because the queue was already quite huge in the morning and indeed when I got there around 10:15am I was fortunate I could jump in at the spot he and Yaels already were. Laura and Tash joined us not much later and we had a lot of fun when a drunken girl crashed in Jamie's arms only to be taken away by the medic later.

The music on Saturday was only so-so, the only band I really wanted to see were Enter Shikari. They only played a short show due to the singer having lost his voice - which was also the reason their April shows I planned to attend have been postponed to June.

Talking about so-so things, it was so boring to meet Laura again! I just had to snog Jamie again. Which probably wasn't such a good idea, he kept humping me all night and what I just said about Laws is bollocks so I wasn't really thinking about Jamie all that much. I was busy enough trying to focus on not falling in love head over heels.. blame (thank?) Jamie if I was too distracted to succeed at that. ;-)

(Post-dated entry, written later than it appears to avoid an endless row of pictures inside the journal.)

GIAN 2007 London Day 1

Gigs

What a morning! Forgot to set the alarm (damn drunken Thursdays!) so I was very fortunate to wake up at 5:10am which gave me just enough time to shower, pack and head to Rotterdam airport where a VLM flight was waiting to take me to London City airport. Dropped my luggage at the hotel around 9am and went to Camden where I decided a new tattoo would be a nice way to remember the GIAN weekend.

Around half 3 I walked up to Earl's Court after checking in at the hotel (can't do that in the morning). To be honest, Friday was by far the best day for music at Give It A Name in London. Countless of great bands played, with special kudos to Mindless Self Indulgence, Alexisonfire and the once-again very drunk Ville Valo of HIM. Their performance actually sucked but I met a nice bloke from London named Zach with whom I quickly managed a nice deal, he'd let me smoke his pot if I used my Dutch rolling skills. Needless to say, at the end of Friday I was quite stoned and couldn't care less that HiM was funny at best.

(Post-dated entry, written later than it appears to avoid an endless row of pictures inside the journal.)

Tiger Army

Gigs

Had a good time at Tiger Army last night, they played a great albeit short show. Met up with Martijn and drank a few beers but didn't make it too late due to an early flight in the morning. Forgot to buy their latest CD so I suppose I'll have to buy it on-line one of these days.

Ready for GIAN

Gigs

Happy St. George's Day! I'm ready for Give It A Name!

On Saturday Powerfest gave me a nice preview featuring the likes of MxPx, Mewithoutyou, Sparta, Mindless Self Indulgence (yay!), Motion City Soundtrack and Jimmy Eat World. Added bonus: Voodoo Glow Skulls.. awesome!

This morning I booked a nice hotel in the Bayswater area which. It costed me more than I'd like to admit, but maybe now I'll finally learn to find a hotel early on. For some reason it's hard to find a good deal just four days prior to arrival.. oops.

Two more days of work after this one and then I'm off to Kinki for a new haircut on Thursday, followed by a pre-flight gig at Waterfront (Tiger Army). Then it's off to London City Airport, check-in to the hotel, party like a madman (HIM, Alexisonfire, Mindless Self Indulgence), sleep. Saturday: meet up with Laura, Jamie and Natasha, maybe hit Camden, party some more (Enter Shikari, Juliette and the Licks, Senses Fail, New Found Glory), sleep some more and/or party late at Camden. Sunday: meet up with Laura again, party some more (AFI, MxPx, Hellogoodbye), sleep.

On Monday all of Holland will be celebrating our monarchy (meh) so instead I'll do some shopping in London and late at night I'll fly back to Rotterdam with VLM airlines. I'm off on Tuesday as well so that means I can sleep in which in turns means that whenever I said sleep before I really meant party, snog and shag because why waste time in London asleep?

Yup, I'm ready for GIAN!

Happiness by the Kilowatt

Gigs

Q. What's better than an Alexisonfire gig in May?

A. Two Alexisonfire gigs in May! I've got tickets for both dates (Amsterdam and Utrecht) so bring it on!

Q. What's better than two Alexisonfire gigs in May?

A. The one at GIAN in London in April because I bought Rachel a ticket for her birthday. Hope Laura won't be jealous about that, but then again I'm not jealous about Andy so Saturday and Sunday should be fun as well.

Give It A Name

Gigs

Just booked my three-day pass and I can't say the band list is disappointing, a lot of good acts have been added since I last checked.

Mostly looking forward to: Alexisonfire, Jimmy Eat World, MxPx, Hellogoodbye, AFI. Good to see again: Kill Hannah, HiM, New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack, Soasin.

Hello from the mountains by the way, still skiing, but back Sunday night.

No Dropkick for Rob

Gigs

I love skiing. What I don't like about it though, is how I end up missing the best gigs. Two years ago it was the Heideroosjes jubilee, and this year I'll have to forego Dropkick. Damn Kaprun!

Change of (Halloween) plans

Gigs

Of course I am still attending the Zombina release party this Saturday, but I won't see any bands on Tuesday other than the local band playing at the pub. What happened that causes me to skip Taste of Chaos and Taking Back Sunday? Well, Anti-Flag are playing as well and I simply can't stand those hypocrites. Fuck capitalism? Fine, but then don't try to sell me tickets, records and merchandise.

Update: probably will attend anyway. I'll just stand at the back and drink beer and ignore Anti-Flag before rushing back to the pit for TBS.

Emo follows the dodo

Gigs

I have finally accepted emo as a valid lifestyle (to mock) and those of you who witnessed my Super-Emo cape at Lowlands will know why. But alas, science decided to send emo the way of the dodo:

A new breed of permanently 'cheerful' mouse is providing hope of a new treatment for clinical depression. TREK-1 is a gene that can affect transmission of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is known to play an important role in mood, sleep and sexuality. By breeding mice with an absence of TREK-1, researchers were able create a depression-resistant strain.

Hopefully these nerds will never find the gene for masochism. I'm cool with scientists who spend their Saturday nights alone in a laboratory. But I won't let them touch the mosh pit or neck biting. Oh no.

Lowlands festival ticket

Gigs

Don't worry Inge, I finally got around to purchasing a ticket this morning. I couldn't be bothered before but your "it's almost sold out" message made it seem like a good idea to take care of it. Now someone please remind me who's playing where and when, so I can pick a list of bands to see. Oh, never mind, I finally found a proper schedule including stages and times on the web site. I'm not happy about the Lostprophets/Pennywise conflict but at least Less Than Jake is a solid excuse for not having to see Muse.

PUSA/Cooper gig

Gigs

If you didn't see me on MSN until late tonight: I just got back from a gig at Tilburg's 013. Support act Cooper tried there best but were extremely boring except for maybe two fast-paced songs. I didn't even take pictures of them which I usually do just for the sake of a complete collection.

However, the Presidents of the United States of America were a lot of fun. Enthousiastic and funny they were. Nothing wrong with a little contemporary rock and roll once in a while, so it was a good Friday night out. (Presidents are definitely more mainstream than usual for me). The band played a fair bit from their latest album (after a five year hiatus) and of hits such as Lump and Peaches. Didn't stay long after, wanted to (and managed to) catch the last fast train that still offered a connection to a slow train which stops two minutes away from home.

Warped Tour plan

Gigs

It's been four years since I've been to the US. It's about time I'm going again, so hereby I announce the plan to go back next summer - ten years after first setting foot in the New World.

I'll be trying to visit some Warped Tour dates and visit the Bay Area again (San Francisco rules!). I'm going to save up a bit of money upfront, I can do a quick Eurotrip on the fly but for a long US vacation it's a good idea to set some money aside.

Anyone who wants to tag along? Sure, I know everybody is skint but I'm sure we could work something out. No idea who'll be playing at Warped but it will be much fun!

Forever Dune

Gigs

It seems like my "Forever Dune" appreciation site was by far not as eternal as the name implied. It has been years since it was down, but I notice some people still get redirected to my site because they are looking for Dune. This entry serves as a way to inform them more properly. Sorry guys, I no longer have any Dune pages up and in fact barely listen to electronic music anymore - in fact Dune and Scooter are the only bands I still occasionally play.

Feel free however to use the comment thread below to discuss Dune or maybe even sign up and promote Dune in your user profile or gig calendar! ;-)

(Yes, I keep pimping that stuff. Sue me.)

Information on Nighttown bankrupty

Gigs

Is Rotterdam club Nighttown bankrupt? Yes, definitely. But there's talk of a possible restart, so rock enthousiasts need not worry if (like me) they have tickets for one thing are the other. Good news!

See what gigs your mates are going to!

Gigs

Ever wondered who else is going to a gig you have planned, or wonder if anyone is going anywhere because you're out of plans yourself?

No problem with Kiki. You already had a gig calendar and now it comes with a list of all gigs of your mates. Now you never have to miss out on any fun anymore.

Angels & Airwaves

Gigs

Wonderful gig! Despite a large crowd turning up for Tom DeLonge's new band, I managed to get almost near the front and hop, dance and sing along. Even though the first AVA album has only been out for a few weeks, everyone in Melkweg seemed to know all the lyrics and large parts of songs where song by the audience rather than the band.

Apocalypse cancelled

Gigs

Apparently the apocalypse did not take place yesterday, so the Dutch anti-666 marathon prayer must have been a great success! As were Alexisonfire and the other bands at 666Fest. It's only rock and roll, but hey, indeed, I like it.

Angels & Airwaves coming up on Friday, definitely looking forward to that one!

© Copyright 1995-2008 Robert John Kaper. All rights reserved.

Tom has more friends but mine are prettier! (#1/1)